A pale, black-haired fellow carrying a pack full of magic knickknacks. He put a spell on your mother, that’s what he did!
All those years Johann had been running from his real father. But now he was here with him.
At home.
Johann was lying on the stone floor at the rear of the cave. The floor was warm, as if blood pulsated beneath it. He turned his head and saw that behind him, at the cave’s end, flames licked out from cracks in the rock, about as high as a man’s hips, fed by the sulfurous fumes. Now Johann finally knew where the glow and the heat came from. The cave was like a huge, scorching oven, fired by the primeval forces of the earth.
When Johann sat up this time, he saw the beast.
It was so tall that it nearly touched the ceiling with its head, which was as shaggy as that of a prehistoric ox, with two spiraled horns growing from its forehead. Its fur was black, and a long tail whipped through the cave, causing sparks to fly. The beast walked on two legs like a man, but its back was bent, the claws on its fingers reaching almost to the ground.
It’s the fumes, thought Johann. The fumes in the cave are making me hallucinate.
And at the same time he knew that this was Tonio’s true shape—the shape that had come before all the others.
The shape of the devil.
“Where is my daughter?” asked Johann. “Where are Karl and my grandson?”
The beast made a deep droning sound, a kind of sigh.
“What is it to you, Faustus? There is only you and me. When will you finally understand? Nothing else matters.”
“That isn’t true!” Even though his head was thumping and his limbs felt as soft as honey, Johann managed to get to his feet. “Where are they? Where is . . . where is my family?”
“I am your family. Always have been. The others are but embellishments in the story of you and me.” The beast gestured behind himself. Now Johann saw some human bundles in the corner, dumped there like pieces of wood. He froze.
“Are they . . . ?” he asked.
“Dead? Not quite, though there isn’t much life left in them. The toxic breath rising from the cracks is weakest back there. Shall I let them go? Is that what you want?”
Hope stirred in Johann. “You . . . would let them go?” he asked slowly.
“What am I? A kindly god with a big bushy beard? The silly old fellow?” The beast roared with laughter until several small stones from the mosaics fell from the ceiling. “You weren’t particularly obedient, son, and played a fair few tricks on me. Why should I do you a favor? At Nuremberg, when the stars were favorable, I could have returned with your help—in my true shape. Instead I am still but a shadow, an outline on the walls of a cave. But all that is going to change soon, very soon!”
The beast leaned over Johann and sniffed him like a deer its newborn fawn. “What will you give me if I let your three little humans go? You know you can trade with me. I love bartering! War, trade, and piracy, they are a trinity indeed, inseparable. What will you give me?”
Trembling, Johann pulled out the little silver globe from beneath his shirt and held it up. He was standing right before the beast now, a small man in front of an enormous, supernatural monstrosity. Carefully he opened the pendant and pulled out the fragile paper.
“Ah, that’s how I know the learned man,” droned the beast. “Leonardo’s formula. The legendary igró pir. I offered him a pact, just like you, but he thought he could play a trick on me and fled to France. As if anyone can flee from me!” The beast laughed again, and slaver as caustic as acid dripped to the floor. “So you found the formula. Well done, my son. It will help me to drown this world in chaos even faster. Men are exceptional students of the devil.” The beast snarled, its eyes glowing like red embers and its tail whipping across the floor like a furious snake. “But I’m afraid this won’t be enough.”
“Won’t be enough?” Johann withdrew the hand with the paper. “What else do you want?”
The beast leaned down to him until it was very close. Johann felt the hot breath of hell brush over him. “Don’t you already know, little Faustus? I want you. The two of us are going to rule over this world: father, son, and an unholy ghost.”
The beast laughed, stars shining in his eyes, yes, entire galaxies.
“Come back into the arms of your father, and I promise you I’m going to make you even more famous than you already are. I will make you richer than a king and mightier than a pope. Together we will set the world on fire! You must leave everything behind. Love is all that stands in your way!”
Johann slowly took a few steps back. He was very close to the spot where he wanted to be—where the flames were lapping out of the ground. Some of the cracks ran deep into the earth, and Johann had seen a blue-and-red glowing far below.
How far down might those cracks reach? wondered Johann. All the way to hell?
“Very well, you may have me!” he declared loudly. “And the formula. If you let the other three go. This is my promise.” Carefully he folded the piece of paper again and replaced it inside the globe while the beast waited, visibly impatient. Finally Johann held the small silver pendant up high and said in a loud and firm voice: “This world shall be yours, and I shall be yours until the end of this world. In return, the others walk free.”
The beast’s claw jerked forward, but Johann pulled back his hand. An angry growl vibrated through the grotto.
“Don’t play games with me!” snarled the beast.
“Say it!” demanded Johann. “I want to hear it from your mouth! We both know that words bind you. There are some ancient rules that even you must obey. So say it!” He held up the globe as if he were trying to tempt a bear with a pot of honey. “Say it!”
And the beast spoke the words: “This world shall be mine, and you shall be mine until the end of this world.”
“In return you will let my daughter, my grandson Sebastian, and my assistant Karl Wagner walk free and live in peace forevermore. Promise!”
“I promise.”
Johann smiled. He really was Tonio’s son, a true magician. The greatest magician in the world.
And his final trick would be his best one yet.
With a sudden movement, Johann yanked the chain from his neck and handed the globe to the devil. The silver ball looked like a tiny pearl in the palm of the huge paw. Still, the beast managed to undo the two halves of the globe and take a look inside.
The halves were empty.
And realization dawned in the eyes of the beast.
“This world shall be yours,” repeated Johann. “And I shall be yours until the end of this world.”
Then he spun around and leaped into the flames.
“Nooooo!” roared the beast. “Stay with me! The two of us will be the rulers of the world! What have you done?”
Seething with rage, hatred, and disappointment, the devil clenched his talon around the small globe, the tiny silver world Johann had just handed him, then hurled the squashed lump against the wall.
You shall be mine until the end of this world.
And the devil roared as he realized that Faust had deceived him once more.
A loud, angry voice penetrated Karl’s innermost consciousness.
It drilled its way through his ear canals and screamed through his head, causing him to wake up. Or was he only dreaming? The sulfurous fumes had made him lose his senses, just like they had with Greta and little Sebastian, who were lying next to him on the cave’s floor, unconscious or perhaps dead. So who was screaming? It must have been a dream, a nightmare. Karl lifted his head. At the other end of the cave he saw the doctor disappearing into the glowing earth. For an instant Karl thought Faust was waving in farewell.
Karl squinted. Flames were lapping up from cracks, painting the cave in an otherworldly light. An enormous, hairy monster with horns was standing in front of the flaming hole into which the doctor had vanished. The beast roared, screeched, ranted, raved, and snorted. A hellstorm swirled through the cave, so hot tha
t Karl thought his hair would catch on fire.
Hell! he thought. This is hell. The pact is coming to an end.
In that moment Karl knew that this was no dream. He knew the doctor had just left him forever. But it was strange: even though Faust was no longer there, the love for him remained, and Karl was no longer afraid. He felt the love like a warm, glowing gem in his heart. A smile spread on his face.
This is the true philosopher’s stone.
The love filled him completely, and Karl knew: no matter how much the beast ranted and raved in this cave, against this force, against the power of love, even the devil was powerless.
Johann was no more—he had gone to hell right before Karl’s eyes—and yet he would always be with Karl.
This thought helped Karl to stay sane.
What also helped was that he lost consciousness again.
Johann was falling.
He knew that his fall was already taking much longer than the laws of nature permitted. But he also knew that the laws of nature didn’t apply to this world. He was surrounded by blazing flames licking at his clothes. Strangely, they were not hot but cold, as if he was tumbling through space. Johann fell, and yet he was weightless, a down feather drifting in the wind, and for the first time in his life he felt something that had been entirely foreign to him until then.
Peace.
No restless pondering and searching, no urge, no thunderstorm of thoughts.
He simply was.
Until just a few moments ago, his thoughts had been spinning. Johann knew the devil couldn’t be vanquished. But he could be cheated. Greed blinded the devil, and Leonardo had known it, too. Back in the underground passages below Nuremberg, Johann had also managed to trick the devil, and now he’d done it again.
For the last time.
With a simple sleight of hand—a trick Tonio himself had taught Johann.
With words and gestures Johann had managed to distract the beast for one fleeting moment. Instead of placing the formula on the tissue paper back inside the globe, he had slipped it into the pocket of his trousers. Now, as he fell, he pulled out the paper and let it go. It flared up, turned to ashes, disintegrated, and was gone.
My final magic trick, thought Johann.
The secret of the igró pir would remain secret—at least until someone else set about the task of creating a deadly weapon for mankind. Johann knew the day would come. He himself had chosen a different weapon in his battle against the devil, a weapon that was just as deadly as fire.
Words.
This world shall be mine, and you shall be mine until the end of this world.
Tonio had uttered those words as Johann handed him the globe. And in the moment that the devil destroyed the globe in anger, Johann had been free.
The end of this world.
The devil was bound by his promise, decreed by a law as old as the world itself. Johann laughed, though no sound came out of his mouth. Greta, Karl, and little Sebastian—his grandson—they would live! Perfect happiness flooded through him.
He remembered playing in the hay with Greta’s mother as a child, how he performed his first magic tricks for Margarethe, the prefect’s daughter; he thought of their first kiss and their secret hours together as they had explored and tasted each other’s bodies for the first time. His love for Margarethe, the passion he had felt for exotic performer Salome as a young man, and most of all his love for Greta had carried Johann through life in spite of the unhappy pact with Tonio.
He had laden guilt upon himself and created something good; he had loved and he had sinned, made mistakes and regretted them—in short, he had been human.
Man errs and staggers from his birth.
Yes, he had lived a full life, and he would leave something behind.
A daughter and a grandson.
And a bag full of stories.
And as Johann hurtled toward the great light at the end of the abyss, he thought how well his mother had done to give him this strange name.
Faustus. The lucky one.
He had never felt luckier than in this very moment.
Birds were singing, a woodpecker was hammering, and a bell started chiming softly, followed by many other bells. A myriad of other bells!
Karl opened his eyes and looked up at the sky, which was blue and cloudless. Twigs pricked him through his clothes, and he felt bitter cold. It was a crisp and bright December morning.
This isn’t hell, thought Karl. Where am I?
He sat up awkwardly, his head thumping as if the countless bells were tolling inside his skull. He felt as miserable as if he’d been drinking wine all night. It must have been because of the toxic fumes he—
Karl started, suddenly feeling wide awake.
Toxic fumes!
He looked around. It would seem he was in the small wood at the foot of Palatine Hill, somewhere close to the shaft. Among the barren trees stood remains of walls, broken columns, and stone arches that probably used to belong to the palace of Emperor Augustus. Memories rained down on Karl. He had climbed down into this cave with Johann and Greta, and Tonio had awaited them there with Sebastian on his lap. The doctor had spoken with Tonio, but then everything became blurry. Fragments flashed through Karl’s mind that didn’t make sense. A huge shaggy beast, a roaring, tongues of fire. Karl frowned. Somehow he had made it out of the cave. He turned around and saw a pile of rocks that looked as if they were freshly collapsed. Beside the rocks lay two figures.
One bigger and one much smaller.
“Oh God, no.” Karl scrambled toward them.
Greta was holding little Sebastian in a tight embrace, like the Mother Mary in Michelangelo’s pietà. Their eyes were closed and their faces deathly pale. His heart beating heavily, Karl bent over Greta. Her skin was cold, much too cold.
“It cannot be,” he sobbed, shaking her. “It just cannot be. Please.”
Sebastian began to cry, and moments later, Greta started to grouse.
“How dare you wake me from my deepest—”
She shot up. Her face was soot stained, her hair tangled and full of leaves. “Sebastian!” she gasped and drew her son into her arms. “Where are we? Where is Tonio?”
Karl was so relieved that he couldn’t speak for a few moments. The bells of Rome continued to chime, the day was only just beginning, and a cold sun came edging across the eastern end of the city.
“Tonio appears to have vanished, just like your father,” said Karl eventually. “Evidently we made it out of the cave. Don’t ask me how.” He pointed at the pile of rocks. “Perhaps that was the entrance. Now it is sealed for good.”
“Sealed?” Greta rocked her son and he soon calmed down. She hoped last night was nothing but a nasty dream in the child’s memory. Greta pushed him under her dress, warming him with her body. “And my father?”
“We need to find the shaft.” With shaky legs, Karl hurried ahead. It took them a while, but eventually they found the spot where they had climbed down into the cave the night before. By daylight and with the leaves covered in hoarfrost, the green bunches of parsley looked rather pretty. The rope they had used for their descent still hung into the hole, but when Karl went on his knees and peered into the darkness, he gasped with shock.
“The shaft has collapsed,” he said. “I can see rubble just a few feet down. Maybe there was an earthquake in the night, or the stones came loose, or—”
“If my father was still down there, then he is dead,” said Greta softly but decidedly. “Either he has been struck down by rocks or else the fumes would have killed him by now.”
“Maybe . . . maybe he managed to get out, just like us.”
“Then why isn’t he here?” Greta shook her head, her jaw clenched. “My father is dead. I can feel it. Remember what I saw in his hand a long time ago.”
Faust is dead.
Something in Karl refused to accept this thought. Never.
“Your father knows every trick in the book,” he said. “He is a wizard, remember
? And he—”
“He is dead,” insisted Greta. “Accept it, Karl. He has been wanting to die since the moment he decided to face up to Tonio. He and Tonio.” She paused. “Maybe they both found their grave down there.”
“Maybe.”
Once more he saw the hairy beast in his mind’s eye, a beast with horns, surrounded by blazing flames, and in front of a glowing abyss into which the doctor jumps and vanishes.
Had the devil finally come to take Faust?
“Do you know what’s strange?” said Greta as Sebastian tugged at her hand.
The boy wanted to get away from here; he must have been cold and hungry. And yet he didn’t cry, almost as if he sensed that his mother was speaking of his grandfather, who had gone forever.
“I truly hated my father,” continued Greta. “He killed the father of my child, and he deceived us—yes, all of us, for years. He was in league with evil forces. But now that he is no more . . .” She hesitated, staring at the hole full of rubble. “I believe I have made my peace with him.”
Karl nodded. “Me too.”
Gradually the realization sank in that Faust might actually have disappeared for good. Left behind was the love Karl had felt for the doctor. Love, but also admiration and respect for the greatest magician of all time.
“I think he will never be forgotten,” he said eventually. “They will still remember him in many hundred years. Just like they are going to remember Leonardo da Vinci.”
“Who knows, perhaps you’re right.” Greta’s eyes gazed into the distance. “Remember the time in Erfurt when he promised the students he’d conjure up beautiful Helen, and out of the chest came you?”
“Of course!” In spite of himself, Karl started to grin. “Especially the wig. Dyed horsehair down to my hips.” He breathed deeply. The memories helped give a home to his grief. “Or the time the doctor held the fireworks at Frankfurt and declared he could fly into the sky on one of the big rockets.”
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